There’s a great New Republic article on the rise of Chris Christie. Executive summary: he did start off bucking the (corrupt) system but he got his big break by raising beaucoup de bucks for Bush and getting a US Attorney gig in return.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Doug!https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgDoug!2014-02-13 11:24:172014-02-13 11:37:46Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

The Outlaw Jersey Whale has been crooked and working the law his entire life. Just a typical %!#@in’ lawyer turned politician. Useless piece of money grubbing crap who thinks his doesn’t stink. Plain enough.

@schrodinger’s cat:
Nice blog post. At long last, Bobo has decided to blame the victims. “Things would be fine if those serfs just weren’t so lazy.” Lamentably, that idea has every chance of catching on.

The days after the scandal broke I tried to explain that he was toast to the old NorCal totebaggers at my gym and they weren’t having it. They were sure his press conference “sounded all the right notes.” I still can’t figure out how they came to that consensus so easily and wrongly.

Because winning the next 24 hour news cycle is more important than having the facts on your side. I think Christie actually did about as good a job as is possible of simultaneously blaming a large group of his subordinates and appointees for his problems while looking like a take charge leader who’s completely on top of the situation. It’s only when they take a step back and consider things that people start to recognize the contradictions inherent in his position. It certainly doesn’t help that he’s tried to regain traction by throwing more people under the bus, e.g. by blaming badly supervised subordinates for the press release trashing Wildstein.

Another thing as occurred to me. For five years, almost six now, the right has engaged in a political witch hunt to find some actual actionable dirt on the current President. Their failure to do so has unintentionally left history with a conclusion they will NOT like, that Obama is probably (given the level of scrutiny he’s endured) one of the cleanest Presidents we’ve ever had.

That same level of scrutiny is now commonplace for all politicians, however. The desire to dig up ANY dirt on ANYONE has left our whole . . . apparatus in a mode of scandal-seeking. It’s almost a foregone conclusion that any candidate for POTUS with a dog on his roof or an intern in his bed, or whatever, can expect it to come out in this era of instant information.

The New Republic article is really interesting. I had no clue that NJ politics is so corrupt, so driven by bosses, so friends-and-enemies style. It is sad that B. Buono couldn’t get people to donate above the reporting threshold. (Reportedly due to fear of retribution, and there is no other obvious explanation.)

@slippytoad: In a time of great inequality, corruption becomes more prevalent. Government corruption is up on all levels in the US. It’s distressing because most of us a remember a time when this was not so.

Unless we fix the INEQUALITY, STUPID problem, shit like Chris Christie, Ray Nagin, etc will be the norm.

Bush family is corrupt as hell but a lot of the worst stuff they did was 100% legal, ditto with Romney. That’s the most frightening part about all this.

@schrodinger’s cat: Oh for crying out loud. I thought the conservative ideal was for these nice stable neighborhoods where the kids knew all the neighbors and could play outside. Anyway, of course people were moving more in 1950. There was a housing shortage that was ending. We had just gone through a kind of major event historically where lots of people had to move around to fight some kind of war and people were sorting themselves out after that. People had put off household formation for 10 years and were having babies. We had this new government program that made 30 year mortgages stable and were building houses in the suburbs. None of those things applies to our current situation.

Alec MacGillis seems to be, generally, a good reporter — but I have some concerns about this article. For example:

House Democrats in Washington would eventually call a hearing on Christie’s use of deferred-prosecution agreements, and Christie was asked whether there was a “perception of a quid pro quo” when Kelley was awarded a contract after having let Todd off the hook. “No, sir, because my brother committed no wrongdoing and was found not to have committed any wrongdoing, both by the Southern District of New York and the SEC,” he answered. The answer begged for a follow-up. The SEC had found wrongdoing, and it was precisely the Southern District’s finding of no wrongdoing in his instance that was at issue. But the lawmakers didn’t get a chance to press the matter, because moments later, Christie abruptly announced that he had to catch a train and walked out. “It was a strange hearing,” Tennessee Representative Steve Cohen told me. “He just got up and left.”

1. That’s not at all what happened. Christie, citing pressing business in NJ, had informed the committee beforehand, in writing, that he would have to leave at 1:30p. (He’d been there from 11a). And even at 1:30, he didn’t just get up and leave. It was not that abrupt.

2. The hearing was not “on Christie’s use of deferred-prosecution agreements.” It was more generally about “Accountability, Transparency, and Uniformity In Corporate Deferred And Non-Prosecution Agreements.” Christie was one of seven witnesses.

The above facts are readily available in the Congressional Record. Why does MacGillis not know them or not convey them to the reader? Is MacGillis consciously presenting a different narrative?

3. I agree with MacGillis: Christie’s answer to the question definitely “begged for a follow-up” — so MacGillis ought to have asked the chair, Rep. Cohen (with whom, as we know, he spoke), or his boss, Rep. Conyers — both Democrats — whether there was any follow-up in writing. If MacGillis did ask, he has not told us.

So … one ought to be concerned about the accuracy and completeness of the article.

All that said, when it comes time for Christie’s political funeral, no one will be cheering louder than me.